Chapter 11
The Blood Compact
Bohol
In March 1565, on Bohol, Datu Sikatuna and another chief, Sigala, made friendship with Legazpi by the islands’ custom of blood-friendship, in which each side drew a little blood and drank it mixed with wine. In the Philippines it is called the Sandugo; its exact date and place are still debated.
When and where was the blood compact?
Bohol keeps 16 March 1565 as Blood Compact Day, with a monument at Bool, near Tagbilaran. In 2005 the National Historical Institute concluded that the compact was made aboard Legazpi’s flagship, the *San Pedro*, anchored off Loay, on 25 March 1565, and in 2017 the National Historical Commission asked for the Bool marker to be removed. Legazpi’s own letter names Sikatuna and Sigala but gives no date.
Was this the first blood compact in the Philippines?
No. In 1521, at Limasawa, Magellan and the king of Mazaua, Rajah Kolambu, became sworn brothers, and in Cebu Rajah Humabon asked for a drop of Magellan’s blood as a sign of friendship. The 1565 compact with Sikatuna is the famous one because of Juan Luna’s painting of 1886.
March 1565
The Bornean pilot goes inland to find the chiefs of this part of Bohol. Two of them come back with him to the fleet: Sikatuna, and another chief called Sigala.
They tell Legazpi the same story about the Portuguese. Then they make friendship with him, by the custom of the islands. It is a hopeful moment, and Legazpi is wary of it. “Although Çicatuna and Çigala made friendship with me,” he wrote, “we could put no confidence in them; nor would they sell us anything, but only made promises.”
25 March 1565
Legazpi had already watched this ceremony elsewhere in the islands, and he described it carefully. Each side draws “two or three drops of blood from his arm or breast,” and mixes them “in the same cup, with water or wine.” The mixture is divided between two cups, “and neither person may depart until both cups are alike drained.” It was, he wrote, “a ceremony that is considered inviolable.”
Nobody wrote down the day it was done with Sikatuna. Bohol remembers it on 16 March, at Bool, near Tagbilaran. In 2005 the National Historical Institute, after studying the documents and the coast, concluded that it took place aboard the flagship *San Pedro*, anchored off Loay, on 25 March 1565.
Late March 1565
With the Bornean pilot’s help, peace is made with one of the chiefs of the island, and at last the people bring food in quantity, “many sardines especially.”
Legazpi needs to know more about the big island to the northwest, Cebu, where Magellan was welcomed in 1521 and his men were later killed. He sends a frigate with the chief pilot and the Bornean pilot to explore the islands that can be seen from Bohol.
He gives it one week.